Well, I didn’t know how to respond to that so I said thanks for your time and left. As soon as I was clear of the neighborhood, I called Harvey. “I don’t think his folks approved of him.”
“You figure out why?”
“It’s a religious thing, apparently. They said something about a fifth day.”
“It figures. They would have been referring to Genesis, I guess. The biblical one. The fifth day was when God created the first living things.”
“It was a sad scene back there, Harvey. I thought religion was supposed to be a comfort.”
“Not always. I guess his being gay didn’t help, either.”
I thought about Gelper standing there trembling and it occurred to me that he was the one in hell.
I rode down to the local library, commandeered a computer, and did a search on Francis Gelper. I’d done that before, of course, when I’d been putting the original story together. Thousands of entries had popped up. Gelper on telomeres for Nature. Gelper discusses evolutionary extracts for The Darwin Newsletter. Gelper on cell cycle checkpoints for The Scientific American.
But this time I narrowed the search. I added ‘gay.’
The usual range of off-the-subject results showed up. Joe Gelper plays Gaylord Batterly in Over the Top, with George Francis conducting. Time travel novel Back to the Gay Nineties by Marie Gelper one of the year’s best, according to Mark Francis.
Then I saw the one that froze me. It was from something called The Revelation Bulletin.
Exorcism Rites Performed on Three Boys
Twin Rivers, Ala. April 11. Three teenaged boys received exorcism rites this past Sunday at the Divine Beneficence Church. The ceremony was conducted by the Rev. Harry Michaelson, while hundreds of worshippers watched in awe.
The article went on to name the teens. One of them was Francis Gelper. I checked the date. He would have been fifteen.
I looked up the Divine Beneficence Church and drove over. It was a picturesque place, not as big as it sounded in the story. It was freshly painted, with a white picket fence sealing off the grounds, and a large signboard exhorting everyone to attend the Mighty Soldiers of the Lord Revival that weekend. The Rev. Michaelson was listed as rector.
Ten minutes later I was back at the Gelper place.
They were surprised to see me. “Tell me about the exorcism,” I said.
Margaret went pale; Gelper took to glaring at me. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” he said.
“What did he have to do? Stand at the front of the church while all his friends watched? And somebody prayed over him?”
Margaret looked through me. “We had no choice. We were fighting for his soul.”
“Did he have to confess his sins to the entire congregation?”
Gelper started for me. “Get out,” he said.
“That explains why he kept it quiet, doesn’t it?”
“I already told you why. He was denying his God. No wonder he died young.”
He was moving toward me with his fists balled. I’m not normally all that brave when it comes to physical confrontations. But on that afternoon I was in a rage and I stood my ground. “You got it wrong, Gelper,” I said. “He knew the conclusion you’d jump to. That his results supported your notions of creation. And he didn’t want that. He wasn’t denying God. He was denying your vision of things. He was denying you. He sacrificed everything rather than allow you to appropriate his work.”
Harvey informs me the odds against life in any one place are so remote that they exceed the estimated number of worlds in biozones in the entire universe by a factor of three. If we assume that the sort of life we know, the carbon-based type that needs liquid water, is the only kind possible, then the chances were two to one against the appearance anywhere of a single living creature. We got lucky. That’s what Harvey says.
But the estimate of the number of eligible planets is wildly speculative. Nobody has a clue how big the universe actually is. So all the talk about probabilities is, in the end, just talk.
Still, when I look at the night sky now, it’s different from what it used to be. It feels cold. And impersonal. Just a machine.
I wonder if Frank Gelper had felt the same way. And if, in the end, that was the real reason he kept everything to himself.
DEUS TEX
The building was dark except for a table lamp in the living room and a ruddy glow on the third floor. The upstairs light didn’t give us any concern because a lot of people leave a second light on somewhere when they go out.
I looked around at the railroad tracks and warehouses and freight terminals and wondered why anybody would want to live down here. But Armin Rankowski had.
At least he had until he walked in front of a truck. That had happened the previous evening. Hatch had seen the story and had read that there were no known survivors. That meant nobody home until the county got its act together.
The telephone book listed his home address as 511 S. Eddy in Pemberton, a small industrial town just south of Houston. We found a partially-refitted warehouse at the address. It was three stories high, with new siding and a freshly-painted front entrance, and plants and curtains in the windows.
The ambiance was by no means luxurious, but it was of a higher order than we’d expected. “Definitely worthwhile,” Toxie said.
I mean, somebody lives alone, he dies, his place is an easy hit. We moved to the rear of the building, out of sight of the street. Hatch measured the window, levered it open and poked his head in. “I think we’re okay,” he whispered. He threw a leg over the sill. Like the rest of him, it was big and meaty.
Toxie was little, and sharp-nosed and rat-quick. He was good to have along because he scared easy and you knew he wasn’t going to let you take any chances. You might think excessive caution is not a good idea, but in our line of work, it is a virtue of the first order. He went next and I followed.
I should point out here that it’s always a rewarding moment to encounter a house of modest appearance and discover that the occupants have done well. We had entered the dining room, which was furnished with leather chairs and a nicely-executed hand-carved table that would look good in my den. Two impressionist oils hung on the walls, and we found another one out in the hallway. They looked like originals, which presented a problem because they’re awkward to carry and you can’t be sure what they’re worth, if anything. I’ve taken a couple of classes in contemporary art, in order to upgrade my professional skills, but they tend to deal exclusively with the big names whose stuff hangs in museums.
“How about this?” said Toxie happily, surveying the furnishings. “We need a van.”
Hatch was big and easy-going. He was career-oriented in every sense of the term, and he took pride in the fact that neither he nor anyone accompanying him on an operation had ever been charged, let alone jailed. He was at an age when most people are starting to think about retirement, and in fact he talked about it a lot. He’d invested his money and I knew he could turn off the lights any time he wanted. But Hatch could never be satisfied with sitting on a front porch. “Gentlemen,” he said, maintaining the monotone he always used when he was working, “I believe we have just met the mortgage payment.”
We moved through the first floor. There was enough light coming in from the street to allow us to work. The house was electronically well-equipped. TV, stereo, blender, microwave, everything was state of the art. Rankowski had owned a substantial supply of electronics. In addition, there was good silverware and a set of Dauvier crystal bookends, a top-of-the-line Miranda camera and a Pavilion notebook. We found a tin box stashed in a cabinet in the dining room, under some folded table cloths. It contained about three hundred cash, some cheap jewelry, a pair of diamond cuff links, and a bundle of thousand dollar bonds. Toxie and I carried black utility bags. We put the cufflinks and the cash into the bags and left the rest.
I knew Hatch was trying to decide about the van. There weren’t many cops in this neighborhood, but anybod
y doing major removal at this hour would be fairly visible. “Maybe,” I said, “we should just take what we can carry and come back in the morning for the rest.”
“No.” Hatch’s eyes narrowed while he thought about it. “The county will be in here tomorrow. We’ll take what we can carry tonight and that’ll be it.”
“Whatever you say, Boss,” said Toxie.
“Wait a minute,” I complained. “We’re going to have to leave some nice stuff.”
Hatch’s eyes caught mine. “Carry it or forget it.”
There was an elevator in the rear. We got in and punched the button for the second floor. It lurched, whined, moved up, and shuddered to a halt. The doors creaked open. Long shelves loaded with books lined the place. We took a chance and used our flashlights.
A dozen sheets of paneling lay against one wall. The area was half-done. A newly-installed bathroom still smelled of fresh-cut lumber.
I wandered through the rows of books. “Might be some first editions,” I said.
Hatch shook his head. “If there are, it’ll take too much time to find them.”
I didn’t see any mysteries. In fact, most of the books were in foreign languages. Greek. Arabic. German. Some I didn’t recognize. There were a couple of English titles: Olympian Nights, which I figured was about sports. And The Coming of Apollo, which figured to be a history of the moon program.
Cardboard cartons were stacked along the far side. “You want to open these?” asked Toxie, cutting a hole in one. “It looks like Christmas stuff.”
Hatch waved it away. We had never, in our careers, found anything of value in a storeroom.
At the front, we opened a pair of double doors and looked out on a wide staircase. The woodwork had been recently varnished and it glittered in the moonlight.
We walked up to the third floor. Top of the building. Pushed our way in through another set of double doors.
We were now above the level of the street lights, which threw fragmented illumination against the ceiling. Two dim electric candles, mounted on either wall toward the rear, almost seemed to add to the darkness.
We turned on our flashlights and Toxie let go with an expletive. We were in a large single room, like the one below. But this was filled with rows of display cases. “It’s a goddamn store,” he said.
We kept our lights down so they couldn’t be seen outside. Hatch approached the nearest case, rapped his knuckles on it, looked into it, and shook his head. “Now isn’t that the damnedest thing?” he said.
I walked up next to him and looked in. The case came about hip high. Inside, a seashell that looked like satin had been placed on a cushion.
The case was fitted with a lamp. I turned it on and it highlighted the shell. Hatch extinguished his flashlight. “What’s so special about this thing?” demanded Toxie.
I broke the lock, lifted the top, and reached in, expecting to discover that it was maybe jade. But it was only a shell. We looked at one another and we were all thinking the same thing, that this Rankowski had been a nut.
The next display held a white flute, also on a cushion. But this time it made a little sense. The flute was made of ivory, and would go for a nice piece of change. Hatch picked it up, checked to make sure he hadn’t set off an alarm somewhere, and handed it to Toxie. Toxie put it in the bag.
We moved on and found a gold sundisk, about the general size and shape of a CD, except that a chain was attached. Toxie took out his loupe, screwed it into his eye, and checked it. “Might be,” he said. “Far as I can tell, it looks real.”
Into the bag.
He was beaming. “Boys,” he said, “I think we’ve hit the jackpot.”
Next up was a bushel basket made from balsa wood. Yet there it lay in a gleaming case, illuminated as if Jesus himself had carried it. Hatch shook his head. “I don’t know what to make of it,” he said. “It’s like treasures and trash.”
“This place,” said Toxie, “is starting to spook me.” Hatch and I traded grins because it doesn’t take much to spook Toxie. We found a coiled chain, maybe twelve feet long, made of dark blue and green fabric. There was a winecup engraved with laurel and people engraved on it who looked like Romans. And a quiver filled with silver arrows. We even found a bellows. I mean who today has any use for a bellows?
And there was a mallet that was nothing more than a shaved rock tied to an oversized handle with leather thongs. It didn’t look like something you’d have wanted to get hit with, but it wasn’t worth five bucks.
We saw something against the wall, covered by a tarpaulin. In fact, two somethings. The front one was a little bigger than Hatch; the other reached almost to the ceiling. We pulled the tarp off the small one, and Toxie made a funny sound in his throat. We were looking at a silver harp. Maybe eight feet high. Too big for anybody to use it, except maybe an NBA center. The crown was engraved with a winged woman. Hatch took a deep breath, grinned, and plunked the strings. Making any kind of unnecessary noise on the job was out of character for him, and moreover he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. But it almost sounded good. Hatch rarely looked happy. This time, he was enjoying himself until he became aware that Toxie and I were staring at him.
We had trouble lifting the other tarp and decided to come back to it later. We spread out through the room. Toxie found a water sprinkler that resembled a pine cone. Hatch called us over to look at a trident that was set in a case mounted on the wall. It was battered, about fourteen feet long, made of iron. “What the hell,” asked Hatch, “would anybody want with that?” We broke the case open and pulled it out. It weighed a ton.
We found a golden war helmet with wings.
We found an enormous shield with multiple figures drawn on it.
We hadn’t brought enough bags.
Eventually we went back to the remaining tarp. It gave us a battle but we finally pulled it down. At first I thought it was covering a small yellow truck.
But when Hatch turned his flashlight on it, I caught my breath. The thing was a chariot. Except that it wasn’t because it was too big. The wheels were almost as high as Hatch’s head, and the rim of the car was only inches below the ceiling. It looked like gold, golden wheels and axles, golden shafts and rods, a golden platform for the driver protected by a blazing golden chassis.
We all stood and stared.
Toxie produced a knife and gouged out a piece. “Looks real,” he said. “Gold all the way down.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. This ain’t plate.”
“It can’t be.” Hatch stood back and stared up. “Look at the size of this thing.”
Toxie grinned and laid his cheek against the bright metal in a clear display of affection. “There must be a couple of tons of it,” he whispered, awestruck, “But how the hell are we going to get it out of here?”
Hatch looked from the chariot to the elevator. To the stairway. No chance. Not in a thousand years.
“Even if we did get it downstairs,” I said, “there’s no door big enough.”
“We’re missing something,” said Hatch. “How’d they get it in here?”
I looked at the ceiling.
“Bingo,” said Hatch.
Two freight doors opened out onto the roof. “That’s how they did it,” he said. “They must have brought it in on a chopper. You believe that?”
“Hell of a big chopper,” said Toxie.
I couldn’t figure it out. Why would anybody want a golden chariot up here?
I looked out the window. The sky was hard and clear but washed out by the glare of Houston’s lights. “The guy must have been a collector,” said Hatch.
I’ve seen collectors before. Burgled some of the best in Texas. But nothing like this guy.
An eighteen-wheeler crossed Eddy Street and started up the ramp onto the interstate.
I looked back at the chariot and the harp. And the display cases. Wooden baskets and golden helmets and stone mallets and fabric chains. “What does he collect? What is this stuff?”
While we were thinking about it, Toxie found still more gold. It was in the form of a shaft that looked like something you might fly a flag from. One end was rounded, about the size of a softball. An eagle perched on it. It was about sixteen feet long, and when he tried to move it from its case, he poked the back end into the display with the flute, and almost brained Hatch with the eagle.
“That won’t fit in the elevator either.” Hatch pointed at me. “Cash,” he said, “well need to take it down the staircase.” He produced a screw driver and a wrench, knelt down beside the chariot, and started trying to remove one of the wheels.
There were two cases left. One held a silver staff with two snakes wrapped around it. The thing you always see in drug stores. The other had a pair of sandals and an odd-looking silver hat shaped a bit like a soldier’s helmet. The sandals and the hat were equipped with little ornamental wings.
None of it looked worth anything and I was about to move on when the windows lit up, and we heard the not-too-distant roar of thunder. Odd. Only moments ago, the night had been clear. Toxie was still holding the golden shaft.
“That must be heavy. Why don’t you put it down?”
His eyes met mine. They were bright with an emotion I couldn’t figure. “It feels funny,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
As big as it was, he was balancing it pretty well, grasping it just below the eagle. It rested almost lightly in his grip. “Don’t know,” he said. But his eyes were luminous and he seemed happier than usual.
“Let’s get it downstairs.” I reached toward it, expecting to help him. But at that moment lightning ripped across the sky, throwing the room into relief, and thunder shook the building. A sudden wind beat against the windows. Rain began to fall.
Hatch was too busy to look up. He gave the chariot hub a good crack with his wrench and the wheel came off. The axle banged down and he grinned, grabbed the wheel, and rolled it onto the elevator.
Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt Page 45